Arrest of Secret Crypto Miner in China Following Theft

A man in China has been arrested by the government for the alleged theft of power, in order to fund a secret cryptocurrency mine.

Xinhua news company stated that the Anhui Province electricity company reported a spike in the use of electricity and this eventually led to the confiscation of over 200 computers used for mining of bitcoin and ether.

The suspect allegedly stole over 100,000 kW hours of electricity for two months before the police were alerted. The suspect who is a Chinese national goes by his surname Ma and reports state that he told the police of his dreams of using crypto mining to make money. Ma allegedly bought his hardware in April but the cost of daily power was too much and his mining operation wasn’t making that much money yet.

This is not the first scenario where power theft led to bitcoin miners arrest in China, CoinDesk reported in April that more than one bitcoin miner was arrested as a result of power theft. Another instance occurred in Tianjin where over five crypto miners were arrested for stealing power from the local grid which was used to power over 500 mining machines to generate bitcoin. Xinhua news company referred to this incident as the biggest power theft case occurrence in recent times.